Our first year Physics with Astrophysics students visited Dunsink Observatory for a guided tour of the refractor telescope and the Observatory Building and learned about the rich history and heritage of astronomy carried out there since 1785. Many thanks to Sadhbh Leahy (Education and Public Engagement Officer, DIAS) for giving a great overview tour, talk and history of the Irish National Observatory.
The students viewed the telescope and heard some great contributions of Irish scientists and instrument makers including the famous eclipse experiment by Arthur Eddington in 1919 to verify Einstein's theory of General Relativity. The instrument used to measure the stars' position around the Sun is housed in Dunsink (the Grubb Coelostat, manufactured by Howard Grubb’s company in Rathmines, Dublin) and is seen in the photo below. Of course, the story of William Rowan Hamilton (Royal astronomer of Ireland 1827-1865) was also really interesting and how he developed the algebra of quaternions in 1843.
The Physics Department encourages student trips to see the facilities and hear the history of astronomy. This academic year we also travelled to Jodrell Bank Radio Observatory and the OHP (Observatoire de Haute-Provence) Observatory in France with different student groups.
